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VIENNA, Sept 19: The European Union and the United States pressed the UN atomic watchdog on Monday to bring Iran’s nuclear programme before the Security Council over suspicions it wants atomic bombs, but Russia called for a delay.
Diplomats said Britain, France and Germany had drafted ‘elements of a Resolution’ to submit to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which began meeting on Monday, to report Iran to the UN Security Council.
Two EU diplomats said the draft – circulated to some IAEA board members – urged the board to report Iran’s past ‘breaches and failures to comply with its NPT safeguards agreement’ to the Security Council, which can impose economic sanctions.
If a country is found in breach of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the IAEA is obliged to notify the Security Council, according to the IAEA Statute.
Western countries say that since Iran did not inform the IAEA about its uranium enrichment programme for 18 years, the only way it can prove it is not seeking nuclear bombs is permanently to renounce sensitive nuclear technology.
“This will be an EU push, not just the EU3,” a diplomat said, referring to Britain, France and Germany, which have spearheaded talks with Tehran since 2003. “The real problem is Russia. It will be difficult to convince the Russians” to back the idea of bringing Tehran’s case to the UN Council, he said.
At a breakfast meeting with EU foreign ministers in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged them to consider delaying their plan to involve the UN’s highest body.
Mr Lavrov made the appeal on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, saying it was vital to maintain the unity of the international community to put pressure on Iran, two European participants said. Mr Lavrov did not rule out backing a referral later, they said.
Russia is not alone. Most of the 14 non-aligned developing countries on the IAEA board are sympathetic to Iran’s insistence it has a right to run a peaceful nuclear programme to generate electricity. Iran denies it is seeking atomic bombs.
VOTE DELAY: IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei also called on Iran and the EU trio to avoid confrontation and return to the negotiating table.
One EU diplomat said it was unclear if the EU powers would want to put their resolution to a vote if Moscow was against it. In this case, he said, they could submit it to the IAEA’s board but delay any vote on it while continuing to pressure the Iranians.
A White House spokesman in Washington said: “We both (United States and Russia) share a commitment to making sure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. And we continue to support the efforts of the Europeans to resolve this diplomatically.”
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in a speech to the UN General Assembly on Saturday branded Western efforts to restrict Tehran as ‘nuclear apartheid’, remained firm on Monday.
“We are not going to change our stance. They have to do what they have to do and we’re going to do what we’re going to do,” he told Iranian state television.
The United States, which has long accused Tehran of seeking nuclear bombs, is pushing for fast action after Britain, France and Germany failed to convince Iran to scrap its nuclear fuel programme in return for political and economic incentives.
“We think a report to the Security Council is long overdue,” US ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said.
“The board had wanted Iran to pursue a course of cooperation and negotiation,” Mr Schulte said about two years of EU-Iran talks, which collapsed last month. “Instead Iran appears to be pursuing a course of rhetoric and confrontation while continuing the (atomic) fuel cycle activities that give us such concern.”
Diplomats say the EU trio would not seek immediate sanctions against Iran, but ask the Security Council to call on Tehran to refreeze its entire enrichment programme, a process of purifying uranium which can be used as fuel for nuclear power stations or weapons.—Reuters
